T. E. Lawrence Correspondence – Page 380

To James Hanley, 14. 7. 31. -2- Now comes this question of Greenwood and "Boy". Do you think it is good tactics? Somebody said once that every tub should stand on its own bottom: and if it can't, then it had better not be a tub, I fancy. Publishers are always after introductions and reviews and critical opini...s, and I doubt whether in the long run they do more than limit the reputation. In the long run, of course, for they tell me that praise by Arnold Bennett in the Evening Standard used to sell 2000 copies of anything. I don't care, personally: so long as I'm not accused with reason of setting up as a critic, which I am not qualified to be. Why if he does print something, make it clear that it is from a private letter, & let it be a fair sentence: by taking the wrong one and putting it alone you could make the book sound quite different to what I was trying to say. Hang it all, a follow does not write judicial letters! Finance limits my movements, almost as much as the R.A.F. duties. When I get my month's leave this summer I burn to speed it all in turning a nasty Greek work, for spot cash; and that all goes in petrol for my bike and boat. However patience. We will meet somehow, neither in N. Wales nor in Devonshire, probably. Meanwhile I look forward to seeing a revised Boy, and a whole Shella. I haven't read the booklet with the moon upon it, yet. After being away for a spell things rain down upon me, and it takes me time before I can breathe easily again. Yours T.E. Shaw